My IRA is at 20%ish for the year and my best fund in that IRA is at 24.5%. It's from good fund selection after a bunch of research and I didn't sell or trade except to buy a bit more when things tanked. My more diversified 401k that is handicapped by somewhat lower performing choices is around 10% for the year. I can't even get at the money for another decade so it's biased heavily towards stocks and will remain that way for some time, so buy and hold ought to work out fine for my situation.

See below. That's not chump change, and it's not even close to the "best" in category. It's just waaay better over time than the defaults a lot of people stick with.

Next year, who knows. But the funds I choose for my IRA have long track records of beating the S&P 500 index and I researched the fund managers just as much as I researched the fund return history. Some managers are great, some suck, and a fund that was awesome but just changed managers could be super risky. I think most people spend more time picking their fantasy football teams than their investments...